


I Know, I Know

by nevertoosweets



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Battle of Hogwarts, Book 7: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Deleted Scenes, F/M, Hogwarts Era, Hogwarts Seventh Year, Mix of movie and book events, Not Canon Compliant - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:28:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28119198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nevertoosweets/pseuds/nevertoosweets
Summary: Potter shot to his feet, bolting across the courtyard, and before the thought even entered his brain, Draco was racing after him.Screams were echoing all around him—despair behind and euphoria before.“POTTER!” Draco’s voice reverberated over all the cries and spells. Potter turned, hand raised just in time to catch Draco’s hawthorn wand in midair.Harry turned it on the snake. “Confringo!”The spell shot past his ear but Draco couldn’t stop. He barreled past Potter towards Granger, her mouth wide in an O, her eyes sparkling behind the curls escaping from her braid.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy
Comments: 31
Kudos: 175





	I Know, I Know

**Author's Note:**

> Trans Rights Are Human Rights. I don't stand with JKR and her backward beliefs. I wish the author of this beloved series that promoted equality, uniqueness, and acceptance didn't make others who sought escape in her world feel so unwelcome. Trans Lives Matter.

_ “Draco.” _

It was less of a hiss and more of a croak but his body, through sheer habit, discipline, indoctrinated response, angled itself towards Lucius. Draco’s eyes never left a mass of plaited brown curls, visible through the crowd of fighters-turned-mourners between them.

Granger’s head turned first, eyes finding him before anyone else. They could always find each other’s eyes in a crowd, across the Great Hall at dinner, through the steam in Potions. They’d had whole conversations with just their eyes.

Just as they did now. Draco gazed back at her red-rimmed, bloodshot eyes. It had to have only been for a brief moment, but in those seconds he saw the same pleading look she had given him the night he refused to go to Dumbledore. The night he figured out how to fix the Vanishing Cabinet. The night he knew there wasn’t going to be any return for him. 

He had intercepted her on her Prefect rounds that night, pulling her into an old abandoned classroom and claiming her lips with his before she could ruin his plan with her incessant talking. She hungrily kissed him back, a note of desperation in the way her tongue swiped his. In the way she poured everything they were both too scared to say to each other into that kiss. She could tell something was wrong. She could always tell with him. 

He told her everything, the words pouring out from his lips as he held her against the stone wall of the classroom, whispering them into her neck because maybe if he couldn’t see the way her eyes dimmed, it wouldn’t be real. He wouldn’t be disappointing her again. 

She shoved him away, only to gather him close again, her fists twisting in his school vest. She looked him in the eyes and pleaded. “Let’s go to Dumbledore tonight. He’ll protect your mother. He’ll protect you. The Order can help.”

He’d heard it all before. All year in fact, after she’d first found him on the seventh floor, hand braced against the wall struggling to breathe after his third failed attempt to fix the cabinet and realizing that his mother may die because of him.

He didn’t want to hear it again. He wanted this to be a goodbye, a proper one. It was selfish of him, but he’d always been the selfish sort. Draco wanted just one good thing to remember before he opened the floodgates and returned to that madman living in his family’s manor.

So he pried her fingers from his knit, held her wrists in his hands, and pressed them against the wall as he kissed her for the last time. Her lips battled his own fiercely and she growled as she ripped her wrists from his hands, winding them around his neck and into his hair. He groaned as she pulled at him and he pressed her hard into the wall, his hands coming down to her thighs and up to her arse. Her legs wrapped around his hips instinctively as he lifted her up, pulling her away from the wall only to slam her back into it as her center pressed against him. 

She poured everything into that kiss. Her tongue battled with his own for dominance, reminding him of their first kiss when she’d murmured  _ I hate you, I hate you _ between his lips. He’d responded in kind.  _ I know, I know. _

He vanished their clothes with a wave of his wand and laid her across a desk. As he entered her, he memorized every single centimeter. He recorded her breathy requests for more. He studied the taste of her, the feel of her skin against his tongue. And as she dragged her nails down his back, he hoped she’d leave scars.

They fucked each other mercilessly that night, pouring all their hatred for the other into each thrust and soothing the other’s pain with each kiss. Draco knew that no matter what happened after, he’d die remembering the memory of her coming apart in his hands.

Afterward, they dressed silently. Granger unable to look at him and Draco unwilling to look away from her.

“Whatever happens, Granger,” he whispered, handing her her school robe. “No matter what. Know that I—”

“Don’t.” She snatched the robe from his hand. That look on her face… it almost broke him. He hadn’t seen that look directed at him in months. “Don’t say it, Malfoy.”

He nodded, his face hardening to match hers, and stepped away from her. She was right, as always. It was better this way. 

He walked to the classroom doors then, leaving her panting and half-clothed against the desk. He turned one last time to look at her. Her wild curls tossed over one shoulder, her pupils blown wide despite her hardened stare.

“Keep yourself safe,” he demanded. “Anything happens to you, Granger, and I will never forgive you.”

_ “Draco.” _

His father’s hiss returned Draco to the battle-torn courtyard. He tore his eyes from Granger’s pleading ones and finally turned them to his parents. His father gestured sharply for Draco and his mother looked worriedly between him and Granger. Near his mother stood Hagrid, fat, silent tears rolling down his bruised face, and in his arms…

The Boy Who Lived. 

Draco almost wanted to snort, but the only feeling he could muster was hopelessness. 

Potter was dead.

Draco’s mother called to him in her soft voice and he glanced once more to Granger, a plea of his own in his eyes:  _ Please understand. I do this for her. Everything I did was to protect my mother. _

He stepped down to the courtyard. Among the whispers of the students and the Order members he weaved through, he heard only one short sob. 

He crossed the courtyard and his mother took his arm. Lucius reached for him, his chin high, but Draco jerked from his father’s grasp, pulling his mother further away from the Dark Lord. 

“Are you okay?” he whispered.

His mother handed him his wand and he returned hers, feeling better now that she could protect herself. It was good to hold his own hawthorn again, but there was something off about it. As if it yearned for another. 

“Yes, I’m alright. Draco, listen, he’s not—”

But before she could finish, the Dark Lord’s hissing voice echoed across the stones and through their heads. 

_ “Well, I must say I hoped for better.” _

There were jeers from the Death Eaters around them and Draco looked up to see Longbottom standing in the center of the courtyard, a ratty old hat in his hands. Beyond him, Mr. Weasley was holding Ginny back who was reaching desperately for—who? Potter? Longbottom? Did it matter anymore? One was dead and the other was next.

“I’d like to say something.” Longbottom interrupted the Dark Lord and the Death Eaters hissed.

Draco tried desperately to avoid looking at Granger; her face buried in fucking Weasley’s shoulder. It was insane,  _ absolutely mental _ of Draco to feel the twinge of jealousy in his stomach at the sight. 

Maybe once, Draco foolishly hoped that despite all he’d done and all of the Dark Lord’s best efforts, Potter would manage to win as always. It was a dream that contained unruly hair and golden-brown eyes and it glowed too brightly for Draco to ever see clearly.

The Dark Lord laughed derisively at whatever Longbottom was saying and Draco prayed to whatever deity was out there that someone would end this soon. 

Suddenly, the world seemed to stop. One minute Longbottom was spouting idiocy, pulling something out of the hat, and the next Potter was falling from Hagrid’s arms. 

Time slowed to a crawl as the events unfolded. Draco blinked. Potter dropped to his knees. Draco blinked again. Longbottom held the Sword of Gryffindor. Draco blinked once more. Potter raised his head, his eyes were open. A feeling Draco thought he’d never feel again burst inside him.  _ Hope _ . 

Potter shot to his feet, bolting across the courtyard, and before the thought even entered his brain, Draco was racing after him.

Screams were echoing all around him—despair behind and euphoria before. His mother screamed his name, but she had her wand now and he’d come back for her as soon as he...

_ “POTTER!” _ Draco’s voice reverberated over all the cries and spells. Potter turned, hand raised just in time to catch Draco’s hawthorn wand in midair.

Harry turned it on the snake.  _ “Confringo!” _

The spell shot past his ear but Draco couldn’t stop. He barreled past Potter towards Granger, her mouth wide in an O, her eyes sparkling behind the curls escaping from her braid. 

“Draco!”

He reached her and she grabbed his arms, spinning them around and throwing him behind her. 

“Granger,” he gasped.

Weasley and his sister jumped in front of them, throwing hex after hex at the panicking Death Eaters as Granger shoved her hand into the beaded bag across her shoulder.

Draco opened his mouth to speak but she cut him off.

“I know,” she said. “I know.” She smiled up at him quickly, gently, before resuming her frantic search. 

There would be time later for him to spout all of his apologies and explanations, to say the words he had wanted to whisper in her ear as they lay twined together. Always, she would whisper back,  _ I know, I know. _

“Still not going to call me Hermione, I see?” She pulled out a spare wand from her bag and shoved it towards him.

“Only when this is all over, Granger.” He gripped the wand and, over her shoulder, shot a spell at Dolohov.

Her head whipped around, casting a quick Shield Charm before turning back to him. “Anything happens to you,  _ Malfoy _ ,” she said, “and I will never forgive you.” 

He smirked and Granger spun round again, tossing spells faster than he could think.

He shot off like a dart, back towards the other side. He reached his mother, gripping her elbow and steering her to the bridge beyond the courtyard.

“You have to go, Mother—”

“Is she okay, Draco?”

_ “Draco!” _ His father grabbed his shoulder, pulling Draco around. Lucius’ face was inches from his own.  _ “What the fuck have you done!?” _

Draco whipped his newly acquired wand between them, pushing it into his father’s chest and putting some distance between them.

“Take Mother and go back to the Manor,” Draco hissed. The sounds of spells ricocheting off stone sounded from behind the three on the bridge. Draco could hear Potter’s voice screaming for Tom.

“I will not—”

“You will, Father!” Draco snapped. “Go back to the Manor, and maybe— _ just maybe _ —our family will be able to come out on the other side of this. Alive and out of Azkaban.”

“Lucius,” his mother whispered. “Please.”

Lucius’s twisted face fell, his eyes softening at his wife over Draco’s shoulder, but they were still wide, full of confusion.

“You—You said he was dead. You lied to the Dark Lord—”

“Lucius.  _ They’re boys _ . They’re just boys.” His mother placed a hand on the arm that still held Draco’s shoulder and his father’s grip softened, falling back to his side as his mother stepped around Draco to her husband. “Let’s go home, darling.”

Lucius’ eyes were still wild, flicking back and forth at the middle distance between them as if he couldn’t quite calculate the solution to the equation that his wife and son had already reached. His mother tugged Lucius gently, pushing him further down the bridge.

A piercing scream echoed from the courtyard and Draco turned just in time to see the head of Nagini flying as Longbottom swung the sword.

“Draco.” His mother pulled him back around. “You’re not coming.” It was a statement, not a question, but he shook his head anyway. She nodded and pulled him into a hug, her voice whispering to him, “Keep each other safe.”

He pulled back, his face hardening as he turned and bolted back into the rubble of the courtyard.

* * *

Draco stood just outside the Great Hall, watching the mix of mourning and celebrating contradicting each other at every turn. 

Draco stiffened as someone stepped forward beside him and clapped a hand on his shoulder. Hesitantly, he turned his head. Potter stood to Draco’s right, his other arm outstretched before them with Draco’s wand balancing on his palm.

“Thanks, mate.”

That was it.  _ Thanks, mate _ . Like Draco had passed him the salt at the dinner table, not helped him destroy the darkest wizard to ever live.

It was more than he deserved, really. 

Draco took his wand and placed it inside his jacket pocket, nodding once. Potter gave him what could constitute a smile but came out more of a wince, patting Draco’s shoulder awkwardly before walking past him into the Great Hall. Weasley followed with a half-hearted glare thrown over his shoulder.

Draco felt her presence before he heard her. She stepped around him, turning her back to the Great Hall, finally face-to-face with him since she’d handed him someone else’s wand. Her hair had fully escaped its plait during the battle and it fell wildly down her shoulders.

“Are your parents safe?”

He closed his eyes and breathed. Gods, he didn’t deserve her. She was battered, bruised, and cut. His aunt had Cruciated her. He had knowingly and willingly betrayed her and still— _ still _ —her first thought was only for the well-being of others, even those who tried to kill her.

He nodded, opening his eyes. “They’re at the Manor,” he replied, “The Aurors will probably still come for them, but—”

“I’ll help,” she said fiercely, her nose scrunching in that same determined way it had when she had said that Dumbledore could save him. “Harry will, too. I already talked to him. Your mother, she—”

“I know,” Draco said, “I know.”  _ I know what Mother did. I know Potter will help. I know you’ll help. I’ve always known and I’m so sorry I didn’t listen. _

“Granger—”

She shook her head, sadly. “It’s over.”

Whatever was left of his heart dropped to the deepest pit of his stomach. He flailed desperately in his mind.  _ It can’t be over. It can’t—they finally—it can’t be over.  _

“What?” It was barely a whisper, a word carried on a breath desperate to leave the turmoil in his body. 

Granger smiled, looking up at him. “You said. Only when this was all over would you call me Hermione.”

He sagged. Furious frustration and relief flooded him all at once. 

“Hermione,” he murmured, savoring the taste of it. She grinned brightly up at him as she stepped closer. He tried to speak but she placed a hand on his lips again.

_ Merlin, would this witch ever let him speak? _

“Don’t say that next part just yet.”

His frustration got the better of him and he frowned, snapping, “Gods, witch, why not?”

Hermione only laughed, her hand drifting from his lips down to his chest and placing her palm against his heart.

“Because we have so much time for that later. We can start over. Be like how we talked about. Just Draco and Hermione, two people who want to be together.”

He closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against hers. She was right, as always. He would soothe the scar he knew ached under her jumper sleeve, she would find a way to remove his Mark like she always promised, and they would help each other heal the other wounds no one else could see. 

Hermione’s hand slid up his chest and wrapped around the back of his neck. She pushed up onto her toes and brought his lips to hers, kissing him softly. 

A burst of laughter from the Great Hall caused Hermione to jump and pull away, an uncharacteristic blush coloring her cheeks. He cocked an eyebrow and she laughed, pressing her face into his chest. Draco grinned slightly, his chin coming down to rest on the top of her head. He locked eyes with Potter from across the Hall and for the first time, there was no animosity in either of the boys’ faces. Not friendship—gods, no—but not hatred. 

He would need to check on his parents soon. There would be Aurors coming to question them and a Wizengamot to deal with, but there would be time for all that later. For now, he buried his head in Hermione’s hair and breathed her in.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading my short little fic about the barest crumb of Dramione crumbs - the deleted scene from Deathly Hallows Part 2 when, at the battle, Draco switches sides at the last minute and tosses Harry his wand. I recently came across it again and this idea wouldn't leave me.
> 
> Huge thank you to my beta [LittleIvy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleIvy/pseuds/LittleIvy)! You have been super kind about my first beta experience and immensely helpful about all the little grammar and tense questions I struggled with.


End file.
